


You cannot fly if you are unwilling to fall

by Optimistic_Nihilist



Series: Roses Into the Abyss [3]
Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Underfell (Undertale), Alternate Universe of an Alternate Universe, Author Is Sleep Deprived, F/F, F/M, Multi, The Author Regrets Everything, no beta let's die
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-30
Updated: 2020-11-30
Packaged: 2021-03-09 20:27:18
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,737
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27802270
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Optimistic_Nihilist/pseuds/Optimistic_Nihilist
Summary: Asgore made a mistake if he thought Toriel would dare let his disease into her home, her children's home. The Ruins is barred, and none may enter. This doesn't stop a half-grown human and her father from slipping through the bars, however.Warning for spoilers for both Aspect of Bones and Do you think I ate the fruit unwillingly?
Relationships: Sans & Toriel (Undertale), Sans (Undertale)/Reader, Toriel (Undertale)/Original Character(s)
Series: Roses Into the Abyss [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2034058
Comments: 1
Kudos: 8





	You cannot fly if you are unwilling to fall

**Author's Note:**

> Basically an outline/dream sequence that my muse blasted at me at high speed while I was re-reading Chill or be Chilled for like the fourth time. If enough people like it, it'll be added to until it's its own story.

_ There's a song you've never heard that fit it perfectly, you think, glaring at the screen that labeled your father as a dangerous criminal and yourself as a kidnapped accomplice. _

_ "Come on Princess." He scooped you into muscled, scarred arms, and you relaxed in his hold. You are eighteen, and you will never get tired of this. You inhale quietly against his chest and memorize the scent of trees, of woodwork and growing life. You're eighteen years old, 5'11, and he can still pick you up and carry you like a baby. _

_-Becomes a crime. Let the corporations, make the regulations, and hold no one accountable, when everything goes wrong, let the rich and famous, get_ ** _away_** _with_ ** _murder_** _, when a high-price mouthpiece starts to talk, his client gets to walk, tell me where is the_ ** _justice_** _. If there's_ **any** _justice._

_ You're eighteen years old and your father is carrying you up the mountain.  _

_ "Here, daddy." You elbowed him gently and picked up your skirts. "Let me walk on my own."  _

_ You're eighteen years old and your father is wanted for a series of murders he didn't commit, and you're leading him up the mountain to the cave that killed the others.  _

_ You're eighteen years old, and the stars are the only light as you and your father huddle together in the center of a hollow and keep watch for  _ pigs _ that seek your lives. _

_ You're eighteen as you hear a crack in the floor, and slam a hand over your own mouth before you can scream. You fall. Your father falls. _

Reality skips like a bad record, or perhaps like a scrunched-up panorama. You see…

_ Your Father, and perhaps eventually your Mother, holding hands together as she teaches us of our new world. A  _ **_teacher,_ ** _ his only weakness. _

_ A flower? How soft! That name, though. Something about the name is wrong.  _

_ A new friend. He knows my mom? Oh! A  _ **_Brother_ ** _!  _

_ The Ruins are aptly named. It feels so sad here. Thankfully you know what to do. _

_ Father used to take you to clean tombstones in the nearby cemetery. It's ironic that repairing so much of the Ruins reminds you so much of that time.  _

_ Mother caught you, but she was so happy. Father looked so  _ proud _ when you showed him what you did. He used to be a carpenter; you'd forgotten. _

_ There's something- some  _ **_one_ ** _ \- hiding in the Ruins. They feel like… e _ **_N_ ** t **R** _ o _ **_p_ ** y.  _ But… not. They feel like the hole emptiness leaves behind. _

_ The person leaving pieces of their soul around the Ruins is… rude. But not unkind. I think being shoved into a plane that is inherently wrong and having your soul shattered across another, completely separate plane, would make anyone tetchy. This does not mean I'll leave them to suffer, however. _

_ The first soul's name was lost to time, but chose to be remembered as Kindness. I've had those dreams again, ever since collecting the first bits of that strange man's soul. There were seven pure ones, I believe, spread across exactly one hundred years of time. Kindness, Patience, Integrity, Perseverance, Determination, Bravery, Justice. And, between them, others. Like me. _

_ I was right. Being trapped inside of a plane that is inherently wrong does make someone tetchy. I still hold the bruises. I forgive her, however, because how was she to know that her death would release her soul to the corrupting hold of the Void? _

_ Her name was Annabelle, and she loved the sun, but she loved the monsters more. She is released to the next world, and she gifted me a kiss and her frying pan on her way. I am nineteen now, and blushing like a schoolgirl. _

_ I have found the next shard, and with it come new dreams. Is this a pattern? _

_ Patience was next. Kindness was twisted into a shadow of her old self and breathing vitriol from a bleeding, broken heart, but I think Patience was almost worse. He was completely dead to the outside world, and-just--- wouldn't. Stop. Crying. _

_ Tonight, instead of trying to make him move, I simply sat with him. I didn't try to placate him with lies about how it would all be okay. Instead, I sat beside him, and his toy knives passed right through me without pain. I can forgive him the cuts, for this knowledge alone. _

_ His name was Caleb, and he was a sweetheart. He was playing with his older brother, when he fell. Albino, with autism, and he gave me his ribbon and his language before he left. It is void-twisted and crackling with  _ **_wrongness_ ** ,  _ but I think I can use this. _

_ Integrity is next. I can hardly wait. _

_ Father asked where the bruises are coming from, and so I told him. It sounds like a tale- gathering the shards of a soul long gone and, with it, releasing the dead from their unnatural captivity. Then again, we did fall to the underground after running from corrupt policemen. Perhaps this  _ **_is_ ** _ a tale we are in. _

_ It doesn't matter. Father is proud of me anyways. _

_ There is a skeleton man on our couch. He was bleeding not too long ago, after teleporting right in front of me as I was dancing and collapsing onto the carpet. Mother acts like this is a sad, if regular occurrence. I am glad he fell in front of  _ me _. I would have never found Annabelle's other gift, otherwise. (Her frying pan and kiss were  _ not _ a dream!) _

_ Apparently the rest of the Monsters' settlement is not nearly as kind as the Ruins. The King decided that humans are much too dangerous, and to fight them, infected everyone with a sort of red… sickness. Mother closed the Ruins before it could spread here, but it's…  _ **_bad_ ** _. I can feel it pressing on me like the waves of anarchy in the Between. _

_ This curse is unjust. Monsters do not deserve to suffer so just because humans are abominations! I will root out this curse if it's the  _ last thing I do! _ But first, I have to learn. In retrospect it is incredibly fortuitous that my Mother is the greatest healer in the Underground. _

_ She ignores me, but I'm used to it by now. She's too busy doing… homework? And studying? For a doctorate? Something feels incredibly wrong here, not to mention how she looks so very stressed out. _

_ Her questions are impossible to answer. They're theoretical garbage and problems without solutions. So I don't answer questions this time. This time, I ask them. _

_ Her name was Hippolyta, and she was the greatest dancer the Underground had ever seen. God, but she was gorgeous, with that tutu on and shining bright as the sun. I can't stop crying. She deserved better than this. They  _ _ all _ _ deserved better than this. _

_ Her mother was an immigrant, and always pushing her to go into medical science, or to "do  _ something _ " with her life. So she did. She followed her dreams. She went to ballet school with a damn  _ smile  _ on her face, and won a full ride into E.B.T. at fourteen years old. She was hiking with her dad when she fell. _

_ Gaster was an asshole. To be fair, he did have pretty impressive PTSD and reason to be, but that isn't an excuse. It just means he needs therapy. The war though, it was… not pretty. Toriel undersells it. By a degree I'm pretty sure is astronomical in numerical value. People are… really, really bad. _

_ Skeleton man is awake. Skeleton man's name is Sans. You boop him on the nose and go tell Toriel; he looks so adorably befuddled. The gold tooth is cute though. _

_ Perseverance is hanging from the strings wrapped around his arms, and there is nothing. No movement, no attacks, nothing. He lies limply from the purple strings and does nothing. _

_ You think you see the pattern now. _

_ You don't cut the strings. You walk next to him and hold on to his feet, lifting him up. It aches, but you do it. The strings fade, until one by one, he's standing on his own. _

_ His name was Clyde, and he gives you a kiss on the cheek and his notebook. You feel the tingling on your cheek, the same feeling as Annabelle's kiss and Caleb's gift. You blush so hard you wake yourself up.  _

_ Your dreams are slightly different now. It's not just Gaster's life, the Human Souls, and night terrors. Now it's Gaster, the Human Souls, night terrors, and someone else. Someone a lot like you. _

_ The idea of Father dying before you even stayed with him more than two years is  _ terrifying _.  _

_ Determination doesn't come. You think you know why, when you water Mother's golden flowers and hear a child's laughter. It's kind of ironic Determination was freed on their own. _

_ Sans is sweet. Even when he's so sick, he's sweet. He doesn't catcall you, or flirt, and even though his jokes are dirty you can match him any day with some filthy jokes of your own. You like him.  _

_ Bravery doesn't  _ **_stop_ ** _. You're gasping, bruised bloody and sweating down to the bone as you claw your way to consciousness. Mom and dad are standing over you, worried, and you tell them what's wrong.  _

_ Sans doesn't ask if you're strong enough to do this. He doesn't ask if you even can. He helps you bandage yourself quietly, and then. He smiles with too-sharp teeth and asks you to 'get up again after, because you still have a couple of motherfuckers to prove wrong'.  _

_ Your returning grin has  _ **_teeth_ ** _. _

_ You scream against Bravery like the beast you are, and run  _ **_right through them_ ** _.  _

_ Their name was Bonnie, and they were five years old. They wanted to be the first nonbinary boxer. They give you their gloves, because 'its cold where you're going', before they left. _

_ Sans congratulates you when you wake. He doesn't seem surprised, just proud. You kiss him on the cheek and are sad to see him leave. He whispers of a secret doorway in your ear, and you can hardly wait. _

_ You knock, but no one's there. You open the door. Something shifts behind you, you are pushed forwards, and you're in the snow. _

_ You spend an entire minute cursing Bravery in your mind for being so vague. You spend another minute cursing the cold as you slip on the gloves. _


End file.
